We can go into the backstory of Blizzard, and we can go into how, for many people watching the show around the world, some of the original Blizzard titles, and I'm a child of the nineties, is a big part of their video games history. But let's start with what's new today. Okay. You have a tie to our Sunday folk. It is the kind of big moment for your studio, which you founded in 2020. The basics of the game and why it's important, why it will stand out in this field. So, yeah, this is a big moment for us because we've been heads down working on two games internally at Dream Haven through our Secret Door studio and Moonshot. So, Secret Door just announced their first game. It's called Thunder Fog. It is a couch co-op, tactical RPG adventure that you can play with your friends, really inspired by the magic of tabletop gaming. And this is a 2025 thing.

Just this is a 2025 thing. So we just revealed what we've been working on all of this time, and we're super excited about it. Some of the unique things about this game: it uses two screens, a personal screen, which is basically your phone in your pocket, and a shared screen. And we're really trying to replicate the magic of tabletop and RPG adventure gaming without some of the barriers that really make it inaccessible to a lot of people, you know? The thick manual, the set-up time. If you look at some of these games, sometimes you're taking, you have to spend an hour learning the rules to teach your friends how to play the game. I mean, that is MMO, RPG Classic. That's the point of it. That is not the point of it. It's to get in and to disagree. He going, Yeah, and have fun with your friends. And so we've really kind of streamlined that whole experience to try to make game night accessible to more people.

And so, and to also give tools to the people who are really passionate about this genre, to be able to bring in their friends who may not have experienced the magic of building that. And so, Kyle. And what's so interesting is this is a four-year project. You've been some in stealth. What is the heavy lift that goes into bringing us to bringing us the other game that you've got lined up? I think that, yeah, I mean, one of the big challenges whenever you're doing something innovative that hasn't been done before, there's a lot of trial and error and iteration. Often you come up with the design, you think it's going to be great, and then when you actually start playing it, you find that there are a lot of things that maybe aren't working as well as you thought or aren't as fun as you thought. And so, it's just very iterative to go and try things, play them, and then evolve.

And sometimes you have to make big course corrections or pivots along the way. How are you trying to build games for these demographic. We're trying to go for a really broad audience, so we try to make games that have depth for a lot of replayability and for people who really want to, who are really familiar with these genres with that sensibility. So that even if you're not familiar, actually, yeah, I would love for you to play our games. It would be an interesting experiment to do that right space together. I mean, if you're just tuning in, this is Bloomberg Technology in Hollywood, the screen time. And Mike Moore, Hein and his colleagues are the people behind Diablo and Warcraft and those games in the nineties 2000 for Warcraft rethink subscription model. I mean you was you were behind it and then skeptical about how that would grow. Let's put that to one side because it isn't the nineties or 2000 anymore. It seems to me really hard to run an

independent game studio and publishing shop right now. How hard? Well, game development has always been very difficult in our experience. I don't think there's ever been a project that has sort of like, we know what we're making, we go and make it and it's just great. It's just always has these zigzags along the way. And I think where we've been successful is really being reactive to what the games have told us that they need in order to achieve their potential. And we always have gone through a process where we continue to bring in fresh people with fresh perspectives. Yes, to experience the game and observe how they interact with it. Where are they getting stuck? What doesn't make sense and trying to really streamline that onboarding. Mike Let's talk about this industry. The back story is that Blizzard merged with Activision. I just want to ask that the conclusion of Activision being acquired by

Microsoft. How you feel that left the industry. What the significance of it was for video games? I think we don't know the answer to that yet. I think it's still early because you're going to have to see how Blizzard is able to operate within that new environment and whether it's an environment that will still allow it to continue innovating. We referenced it at the start. You built a legendary business in gaming that many people grew up with. It's hard running businesses. One of the lessons you've learned from Blizzard that you're either bringing over or not doing in the new arena that you want to avoid the mistakes of the past. Yeah. So I mean, that's two parts. I think some of the things we are definitely want to bring over is we think that, look, gaming is a very competitive business. There's something like 15,000 games that are releasing each year on Steam alone.

And so, in order to sort of stand out, you really have to do something different, better. And so, really having a focus on creating high-quality experiences, we really believe in the power of gaming to bring people together, and that's what motivates us. And so, I think we are always thinking about how to make the games as good as they can be, with a view on what the players, what we as players, want to see from those games. And I think that's kind of, we just always want to keep that mindset. I think, you know, with Dream Haven, one of the things we want to do, we want to create an environment that allows individuals to do their best work. So, and to feel like, and to have these studios feel like they're in control of their destiny and to feel agency and responsible for that, so that they can, you know, steer their ship in the right ways.

Dreamhaven's Game Development Challenges

Welcome to the Bloomberg Technology YouTube channel. Subscribe for original series and mini-docs on game-changing technologies, profiles on innovators, live conversations with experts, and breaking technology news & analysis from Bloomberg TV.